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Typically, the electric guitar is performed with a large amount of reverb or audio feedback[3] while vocals, if present, are usually growled or screamed. Songs often lack beat or rhythm in the traditional sense and are typically very long. The experience of a drone metal performance has been described as not unlike listening to an Indian raga in the middle of an earthquake, by novelist John Wray, in The New York Times.[3] Wray also states, "It's hard to imagine any music being heavier or, for that matter, very much slower."[3] A pioneer band of drone metal called Sunn O))) has indicated a kinship with sound sculpture.[3] Jan Tumlir indicates a "sustained infra-sound rumble of sub-bass–-so-called brown noise".[4]

Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O))) collaborated on an installation with artist Banks Violette, who has likened drone metal to the work of Donald Judd.[3] Tumlir locates a precedent in Robert Rauschenberg.[4] Violette points out, however, that drone metal is "as much a physiological phenomenon as an acoustic one",[3] with an attendant physicality. O'Malley has also mentioned an appreciation for Cormac McCarthy and Richard Serra.[1] Rhys Chatham's Essentialist included projections by Robert Longo.[6]Jim Jarmusch's 2009 film The Limits of Control features music by a number of drone metal groups.[7] Jarmusch said, "I love these kind of visual landscapes they make, and they really inspired things for me for my film ..., because when I write I'm listening to things that inspire me in the direction of whatever world I'm imagining. Boris and Sunn O))) and Earth were really instrumental in me just finding a place in my head."[8]